Amongst some journalists, you’ll still witness a slight shutter at the mention of bloggers. It’s not that they feel challenged anymore (the threat of citizen journalism is so 2008) or fear for their jobs. But, whether they’ll cop to it or not, there’s still a sense that blogging is not “real” journalism.
But this sentiment is quickly dying off. Not only have journalists realized there’s plenty of bandwidth to go around — that there’s room for news, links, analysis and, yes, the occasional meaningless post about breakfast — but they’ve come terms with the fact that journalism itself is changing (and if they haven’t, they won’t be around for long). There is no longer an easy definition for journalism, let alone a way to know what’s “real” and what’s not.
This year’s RRJ.ca blog aims to be your number one way to keep pace with journalism itself. It intends to inform, entertain and analyze the ever-changing face of online news, multimedia and maybe even plain old words on paper. And if we do a good job of it, maybe we’ll wind up convincing even the harshest critics that blogging can be real journalism — whatever that means.
About the author
Wendy Gillis was the Senior Editor for the Winter 2011 issue of the Ryerson Review of Journalism.